(Re) Birth of a Nation

Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer's (alleged) little white lie may seem insignificant in the midst of these racialized times, but it's not.  I don't know Scheyer, and as James Baldwin said, "I have nothing against you. I don't know you personally, but I know you historically." Scheyer represents the danger of powerful white men making things up, better known as lying, to deflect and protect themselves.  His pronouncement that one of his staff members had been " punched in the face " shifted the whole narrative away from UNC's Seth Trimble's buzzer beater shot. Again, in the grand scheme of things, this may not matter to some, but for those of us who study race and whiteness, this is a big deal. And it's connected to larger systemic issues of power intersecting with race and gender. Imagine if Duke was playing an HBCU--how harmful would his accusation have been to Black people specifically &  historically Black colleges in general...